A series of seminars on famous readers was launched, and the winners of the Mao Prize had their first dialogue with online writers

On January 12, "Literature Illuminates a Better Life - 2021 Searchlight Annual Book List Release and Reading Masters Series Seminar Kick-off Meeting" was held at the China Museum of Modern Literature. As the first of a series of seminars, Xu Zechen, winner of the Mao Dun Literature Prize, had a face-to-face exchange with the squid who loves to dive with online literary writers.

Xu Zechen is considered to be the "glory of post-70s writers" in China, and his work "If the Snow Closes the Door" won the Short Story Award of the 6th Lu Xun Literature Award, and "Going North" won the 10th Mao Dun Literature Award. The squid who loves diving is the pioneer of the arcane theme of online literature and the theme of steampunk, and his representative work "Catalogue of Extinction of Luck" is known as the representative of classical immortal works, and the works "Martial Master" and "Lord of Mystery" have not only won many important awards in the industry, but also been permanently collected by the National Library.

In the dialogue, both writers invariably talked about how to tell Chinese stories well through writing. In Xu Zechen's view, if you want to write a good life in the present and understand the Chinese of the moment, a very important path is to "turn back". "This retro is not a simple retro, nor is it a rule, a chapter back, we have to find something for us to deal with the current life from the traditional literary narrative resources and folk culture resources." The squid who loves diving said: "We Chinese like family warmth, family feelings, handle things in a softer way, and tend to be more introverted." Therefore, I hope to gently construct the image of the protagonist through Oriental philosophy by extracting the typical personality of the individual and the people around me, the typical way of doing things for people. ”

Yang Chen, editor-in-chief of Reading Group, believes that the creative process of squid is a continuous exploration of new themes in online literature, while also seeking inspiration in real life, which is very representative in the group of online literature writers. "In fact, his creation is to reflect the changes of the times and the changes of society, and I think that online literature is naturally the most suitable way to portray the times." Squid also said: "Online literature is to become universal literature, inseparable from family, friendship, love, but also need to add some reflection of reality, home and country feelings, and the world in mind." ”

It is understood that the seminar is a series of activities jointly initiated by The Literary and Art Daily, the Museum of Modern Chinese Literature and the Institute of Literature of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and will hold a number of seminars in the future, planning to cover 20 first-class universities in China such as Peking University, Tsinghua University, Chinese Min University, Beijing Normal University, etc., and invite young students to discuss literary topics with experts, scholars and online literary writers.